Don't Rob Your Joy with Worry

We need to understand by looking at verse six, the very first part of it. We need to understand that worry robs us of our joy. Anxiety robs us of our joy. Look at the first part of verse six. Notice it says, do not be anxious about anything. Folks, that's a catch all word. God doesn't care what you're going through as far as you getting to the point that you got to be anxious about it. God knows what you're going through, What he cares about is that you trust that to him. It doesn't matter what you're going through. You trust, you put your faith and trust in the Lord because that battle you're dealing with, it's not your battle. [00:52:01] (57 seconds)  #TrustGodNotWorry

I don't know how you need to do that in your life, but sometimes we have things we have trouble letting go of and letting God having control of it because honestly, we like being in control. It's my life. Well, if you gave your heart and life to Christ, it's not your life anymore. You belong to God. That means, you need to give continually give yourself. You gave him your heart. He has your soul. Give him your problems. Let God bring victory to you. Go ahead and go back. Pull this verse six back up. Don't be anxious about anything, but he tells us what to do. Pray about it. [00:56:58] (48 seconds)  #LetGoLetGod

I think it's really important to remember the difference between happiness and joy. I shared last week that happiness depends on happenings and joy depends on Jesus. Well, let's just look at the actual definition of those two words. Happiness by definition is a temporary emotional response to favorable conditions or circumstances. Personal achievements, we love to brag on ourselves, don't we? And then pleasurable experiences. These three things bring happiness to our life, but joy is something that comes no matter what we're dealing with in life, good, bad, or even ugly. [00:39:33] (58 seconds)  #JoyNotHappiness

Well, folks, I've learned in this life, nothing positive comes out of negativity. If I have negative thoughts, I can't expect anything positive to happen for me, because my mind is not right. If I have negative thoughts and I dwell on those negative thoughts, I'm gonna start having negative feelings. And if I have negative feelings, I'm going to have a negative attitude. And if I have a negative attitude, guess what, I'm going to throw it out and what goes around comes around, it comes right back at you. You've got to look for the good and remember, God loves you, [00:50:27] (44 seconds)  #ChoosePositivity

You know what a command means? You and I don't have a choice. But, how many times do we make that choice? It's a choice we need to make every time to rejoice. What we need to stay away from is making the choice not to rejoice. It's a command we should rejoice and in fact, it's even says, rejoice in the lord always and again I say rejoice. You know what the word rejoice means? It's an action oriented word. It is a command and it is an intentional choice to experience gladness, praise, and trust in God regardless of your circumstances. [00:49:09] (46 seconds)  #RejoiceAlways

Folks, the more positive your mindset is, the more positive your attitude is, the easier it is for you to notice, I didn't say it makes it makes it easy, but it gets easier to get through the trial and struggle stronger and better for it if we're trusting the Lord in the process. You have to have a positive mindset to experience this peace of God. Verse nine tells us the importance of be an obedient believer in Christ. The importance of being a obedient believer in Christ. Because look at what it said in verse nine. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things. Because sometimes we don't do it right, but we keep at it. And you know what? The more you practice, the better you get. [01:04:09] (71 seconds)  #PracticeObedience

Because real joy, a biblical definition of joy is a deep rooted enduring spiritual state that is centered on our personal relationship with Jesus Christ. And because of that, it is important to grow in our relationship with Jesus Christ. It is important to grow because in that we learn to grow in our faith, we learn to trust God more, so when those unfavorable circumstances come our way, we won't get caught up in the emotion things of it. We're going to see in our passage today, what typically happens when we get caught up in the emotion of it, [00:40:31] (49 seconds)  #DeepRootedJoy

Because you have to remember, the first three fruits of the spirit was love, the love of God. If you have the love of God, you're gonna have the joy of the Lord and when you have the joy of the Lord, there is peace. You have to have god's love first and what builds on that is joy and then love and then it goes on to some other things. We need to remember verse four, rejoice always. Well, it says, rejoice in the lord always up here and again, I will say rejoice. So, we need to rejoice always. No matter what. It's a command. [00:48:27] (43 seconds)  #LoveJoyPeace